


If I Die Young

by shitstuck



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Gen, Generic Postgame AU, I'm genuinely sorry for writing this, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Pesterlog, Sadstuck, Temporary Character Death, in the epilogue lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7861567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitstuck/pseuds/shitstuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jake receives a handful of messages from Dirk at an odd time, he doesn't think much of it. But when the conversation ends abruptly and is followed by complete radio silence from both Dirk and the Auto Responder for days on end, he begins to worry.</p><p>He later discovers that his worry was well-founded.</p><p>(Man could this description be cheesier. Whatever.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW for mentioned suicide, but no actual suicide, and not even in this first chapter.

  
\--timaeusTestified  [TT] began pestering golgothasTerror  [GT] at 20:14--  
TT: Hey, Jake.  
GT: Dirk! I must say im surprised to speak to you in what must be the middle of the night for you.  
GT: Is something going on?  
TT: Of course not. I just wanted to chat.  
TT: Has anything interesting happened lately?  
GT: As a matter of fact yes!  
GT: I managed to take down a big cat beast earlier today that was hunting the tinkerbull… swarm? flock? herd?  
GT: I almost want to say herd because theyre part bull but they seem far too small to be referred to as herd animals.  
GT: Hm. Well anywho i took down the big cat and the tinkerbulls were very grateful!  
GT: Im quite fond of them.  
GT: So hows it going in stridertown?  
TT: Oh, nothing much.  
TT: Listen, you know I love you, right?  
TT: I love your smile and your dimples and your ass and how accepting you are.  
TT: I love how you wear tiny shorts and don’t even realize why that’s weird.  
TT: I love when you take care of me.  
GT: I love you too dirk.  
GT: What on earth brought this on?  
TT: I love you so much.  
GT: Dirk?  
TT: Love youuyyfx  
GT: Dirk???  
TT: <4  
GT: Dirk?  
\--timaeusTestified [TT] has become an idle chum!--  
GT: Dirk?  
GT: Dirk?  
GT: Oh well. Talk to you later love!  
\--golgothasTerror [GT] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 20:21--  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I made Jake a little more oblivious. Poor, sweet, Jake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :,^)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where that suicide tag comes in. It's discussed, but there isn't any actual suicide.

Your name is Jake English, and it has been _days_.

Normally if he sinks into one of his working stupors, his auto-responder will at least reply to curious messages sent Dirk’s way, though it’s a bit more independent now than it was.

It hasn't said a word to you.

Dirk’s username has been darkened ever since he disconnected that one time, and it’s a slightly jarring sight, since it had previously been active all the time.

You message Jane and Roxy frantically, desperately hoping one of them will know more, but apparently Dirk hadn’t spoken to either of them since early afternoon, Texas time. You all speculate, but much of it is fueled by either paranoia or absurd optimism.

You try (and fail) to bear the silence as it stretches on past a week.

Until one day, when you (and Jane and Roxy, you later discover) get one long string of final messages.

TT: Buckle up, kids, cause I’ve got some bad news.  
TT: There’s a pretty low probability of you believing me, which is probably as it should be according to Dirk, but he’s sort of out of options at this point.  
TT: Apparently there's no way to break this easily, so I’m just going to give you my programmed message.  
TT: I’ll even change my text color, since he was the one who wrote it.  
TT: Hi, Jake.

Oh, and it feels like a punch to the gut. You always trust AR a little less when he changes his text color, but believing that this was really written by Dirk is almost worse, considering the ominous tone with which your last conversation ended.

TT: I’m afraid I don't know what our last conversation was like, since I’ve pre-recorded this statement, but I hope it ended on a good note. If not, I’m sorry.  
TT: First, since I truly have no idea how our last conversation went, I just wanted to remind you that I love you.  
TT: I love you a lot and that isn’t going to change.  
TT: But I’m sorry to say that if you’re reading this, I’m dead.

Your entire body feels like wood. All the breath leaves your lungs and for once you sit perfectly still. The words “I’m dead” echo in your mind, sounding just like him. You imagine him saying it calmly, seriously, with an air of apologeticness, almost.

TT: Since I've written this ahead of time, I also can’t be sure how it was that I died. Hal might tell you later, if he knows, but I don’t know.  
TT: I wanted to tell you a few things.  
TT: Roxy’s getting most of my stuff, but she’ll send you anything you want of mine if you ask her. You can have whatever you want, but it’ll either have to fit in the Sendificator or be easily enough taken apart and put back together to fit. (So, you probably can’t have my TV. Sorry. I know how much you wanted it. It's so superior to the projector the size of a wall you have.)

A teary laugh escapes you. You curse softly and try to clear up your glasses.

TT: Hal’s got a body now, a bit like the Brobot (but he looks different, don't worry), so he might try to send himself to you. He might not; he might just stay in my apartment or with Roxy, but I figured I should let you know since it’s a possibility. He’s got access to the Internet and such, but he’s trapped in his body the way you and I are.  
TT: The way you are.  
TT: Fuck. Revise that.  
TT: Anyway, after this is sent, Hal will be the owner of this name. He might change it; he has the jurisdiction to do so if he wants.  
TT: I don’t know what state my body is in, but I’m asking Roxy to cremate me. If she can't or won't, Hal will do it.  
TT: If you don't mind, I’d like to have Hal send you a portion of the ashes, and you can keep them or scatter them.  
TT: You can have my original shades, if they're intact. If you don't want them, Roxy or Jane might, and if they don't Hal will destroy them. He’s got his own.  
TT: I… don't know how I died. So I should let you know that it’s possible I killed myself. Theoretically I’ll have a statement specifically prepared for that, but I’ve been putting it off, so it's definitely possible that that's what happened.

Here you stand up and walk to the window. Would he have messaged you to chat and tell you he loves you if he’d killed himself? Gosh, _maybe_.

TT: If I did kill myself (and it’ll likely be pretty obvious from the body, since I’m not generally interested in pretending I’ve never been suicidal), I’m sorry. I’m sorry for putting you through this. It wasn’t your fault, I can promise you that.  
TT: I can probably tell you a bit about what might have been going through my head, but I doubt you’d want to hear it.  
TT: Christ, that’s depressing. I almost hope that if I do off myself, I write a note so you don’t have to read this.

You can see him sitting at his computer writing this, chuckling slightly, maybe rubbing at his eyelids under his glasses.

TT: On a no less depressing note (you know what? From now on, just assume everything is depressing. This is a goddamn depressing memo to write.), I don’t have any plans for any sort of funeral, and I doubt I’ll have spontaneously made plans. Funerals are for the living anyway, so I’ll leave that to you, Jane, and Roxy to hash out. I’ve instructed Hal to legitimately try not to be a giant asshole about me, so hopefully he’ll actually heed me for once.  
TT: I suppose I should be wrapping this up, since I’ve said most of what I need to say.  
TT: I love you, Jake.  
TT: I said it at the beginning and I’ll say it again. I can count on one hand the people I love and you’re the thumb.  
TT: Fuck. *Definitely* revise that.  
TT: I love you so much that I don’t know whether to hope you outlive me so I never have to live without you or the other way around, so you never have to miss me.  
TT: Goodbye, Jake.

You take off the skulltop and hold it in front of you, looking it in the face. Your hands are shaking. In fact, your knees are weak and your whole body feels wobbly, so you let yourself faceplant on the bed.

Slowly, slowly, it begins to sink in.

You picture his face, lifeless and blank, maybe with a smear of blood. (You don’t have to work hard. You’ve seen him dead before, after all.) The memory brings up the first choking sob and then you’re a goner, wailing and screaming and crying. At some point your glasses get flung across the room. 

You realize, when you’ve run out of tears and are lying on the floor, that your Pesterchum is still pinging. You pick up your skulltop and put it on.

TT: I’ve been instructed to answer any questions you have “with some basic fucking decency for once,” so ask away.  
TT: I found him on the roof. He’d finished my body a month previously. Seagulls were pecking his body apart.  
TT: His shades are cracked but intact.  
TT: He was killed by the Imperial Drones. Roxy has not been killed similarly, but she might be making plans to evacuate somehow.  
TT: I don’t currently have any plans. I’ll let you know if I’m sending myself to you, don’t worry. I won’t spontaneously arrive.  
TT: Until next time, Jake.  
\--timaeusTestified [TT] has changed their name to automatonRejoicing [AR]\--  
\--automatonRejoicing [AR] has ceased pestering golgothasTerror [GT]\--

You throw your skulltop across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this'll _probably_ only have two parts, but I apologize in advance if I do later decide to write a third chapter.
> 
> Edit: There's a third chapter coming. Sorry :^)
> 
> Edit 10/29: Fixed the continuity a tad. I read it through and realized that he was standing wearing the skulltop at one point and then later he pushed his rolly chair away from the computer and stood up, so I fixed that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :,^)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to apologize in advance.

Your name is Jake English.

You aren’t sure how Roxy and Hal managed to get here, but here they are.

You’re standing right by what will become Dirk’s apartment. It’s already a high-rise apartment building, but you know that in a matter of years his tower will be constructed above it.

You, Jane, Roxy, and Hal are standing by the door.

“We can’t go in! We’d probably get in trouble for loitering! Who knows what the people inside are like?” says Jane.

“But it’s the most fitting place to do this!” you protest.

“You know what’s really the most fitting place?” says Hal, not really asking. “The roof. We’ll climb up the fire escape.”

Nobody says anything to that, but Roxy glances at the rest of you and starts making her way towards the ladder.

You bring up the rear. You’re carrying the final portion of his ashes.

You’d spilled the first portion into the volcano on your island. Hal had been there, by some sorcery you hadn’t bothered to question. All you'd said was a simple goodbye and told his absence you loved him. Roxy had scattered her cut of him into the sea back at her home. Hal had probably been there as well. Jane would be keeping the third part of Dirk in an urn somewhere, possibly on her mantel.

You’re currently holding the fourth part, to be scattered off of the roof of what will be his building. 

It’s the middle of the night, but the city is still thrumming with activity, cars zipping by on the streets below as you climb the stairs. You feel like you should probably be nervous, climbing up a dubiously sturdy staircase up the side of a dizzyingly tall apartment building while carrying precious cargo, but you can’t bring yourself to feel all that strongly about it. You even glance downwards, but the tug of gravity doesn’t scare you.

You miss him.

When you get to the roof, you just sort of stand there in silence. Nobody knows what to say until Roxy breaks the oppressive quiet.

“Is it me or is it kinda fucked-up that we’re… pouring him out here, and then in four hundred years he’s gonna have to live above his own ashes?”

“Roxy!” Jane scolds.

“There’s an 87% chance that if he ever found out, he’d have thought it was fucked-up,” says Hal.

“Well, he _didn't_ find out, _did_ he,” you snap. You regret it the instant you see Roxy and Jane’s faces fall. “I—sorry,” you say softly.

“This has been tough on all of us,” Jane says gently, putting a hand on your shoulder. She squeezes gently after a moment and says “Come on, let’s go.”

You swallow, wondering where your tears are. At your volcano, you'd been bawling before you'd gotten to the top. Hal had held you so your shaking legs wouldn't accidentally topple you into the lava behind Dirk’s remains.

You miss him.

You pour the last of him off of the roof when Jane nudges you to, but really you scarcely register what anyone says.

You linger on the roof after Roxy and Jane climb down. Hal waits with you, back by the ladder.

“I miss you,” you whisper to the empty air. Right now there is probably nothing you want more than to see Dirk again.

“Sorry,” you hear, and for a moment you think it’s Hal. But then he sits down next to you and you see that it's Brain Ghost Dirk.

As if this was what you needed to move on with your life.

“I didn't realize you were still around,” you say with some difficulty.

“Me neither, to be honest. It’s—” He hesitates, looking around and frowning. “It’s weird being… here, when he’s—well, dead.”

“I would have thought that since you weren’t completely… severed from him, I suppose, that you would have… gone when he did.”

He sighs. “Yeah, well, my thought is that since I came from you, sort of, and you’re still kickin’, so am I.”

“Oh.” The pair of you lapse into silence. What do you say to the brain ghost of… well, Dirk?

Well. What would you say to _him?_

“I’m sorry,” he says before you can speak.

“Whatever for?”

“Um. Leaving you. Dying. Writing that note, ‘cause honestly, that was kind of a shitty douchebag thing to do.”

“You know what the real ‘shitty douchebag thing’ was? Hal telling me you were being eaten by seagulls. All you did was tell me you loved me and all the other things you thought it would be better to hear from you than Hal.” You pause. “Honestly, though… I think I am a little chuffed with you.”

He does that thing where he curls his lip to hide a laugh.

“I’m serious! Look, I—I know it’s silly, and I’m more upset with Hal than with you, but—you _left_ me. You know, even more alone than usual. It’s like—oh, this is cheesy, even for me, but it feels like you’ve stolen my heart, and now I’m breathing and walking around but it’s _missing_ , you’re _gone_ , and I’m… empty.”

He bows his head. “Sorry.”

“No! It’s not -- argh! It’s not your fault! It’s not anybody’s fault but the blasted Condesce for sending her drones after you in the first place!”

“Jake, I’d been fighting them off for _years_. I should have been able to take them, especially since Sawtooth and Hal were there. I don’t know what happened. I just failed. I _failed,_ Jake, and that’s all it is.”

“Losing a one-in-a-million battle against killer robots in the middle of the night isn’t failure! It’s human!” you shout. “I can’t _believe_ you! You’re _dead_ and yet you still manage to have this idea that you should be perfect, even though you’re human just like the rest of us!” You stand up, stepping away from the edge, shaking your head. “You’re the most impossible person I’ve ever met.”

He stands and faces you, head down. “I’m sorry, Jake.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” you mutter. “I love you, asshole.” You grab him by the hood and kiss him, hard.

He freezes up, at first, like he used to occasionally when you surprised him like this. But then he melts and wraps his arms around your waist, and he actually starts kissing back.

You don’t break apart until you hear Hal from the other side of the roof. “Jake! Who the fuck is that?”

It occurs to you, as you lean back and look at Hal, that you’ve just kissed Brain Ghost Dirk, not “Real Dirk.” Who is normally completely intangible to you. Who is also normally invisible to everyone else. He seems to realize this at the same time as you, releasing your waist and patting at his chest, his hair, your shoulders.

You grip him around the back and cry out into his shoulder. “Holy SHIT.”

“Is that _Dirk?”_ Hal calls, and you hear exclamations of surprise from Roxy and Jane below him. Brain Ghost Dirk -- no, _Dirk’s_ breath hitches next to your head, and you think he might be crying.

“Are you --” you whisper, not knowing how to articulate your question. Is he the “Real Dirk” you knew and loved?

“One and the same,” he whispers into your hair, pressing his lips in.

You just hold him tighter, pressing his needle-thin frame into you and feeling every uncomfortably sharp joint against your body.

“DIRK!” Roxy screeches, throwing herself at the pair of you, her bony arms digging into your neck.

“Dirk!” Jane cries, sounding an inch from tears, and wraps herself around you.

You stay there for a good long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I'm a little shocked that this was how it ended. Once BGD showed up it was always going to be happy, though. And let me explain how he and "Real Dirk" are "one and the same."
> 
> BGD and RD always had some modicum of each other's memories, so the combination of RD's death and Jake's passive Hopey Majycks allowed them to fully merge. So technically, the Dirk we have at the end is both of them, but since they generally shared memories, they're close enough to the same person that the final result is basically RD with a closer connection to BGD.
> 
> If that makes any sense. Let me know if you're still confused and I'll try to clarify in the comments.
> 
> Oh yeah, and there _will_ be an epilogue. *rubs hands together* one last chance to hurt you!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY THE LAST ONE UGH. This... is wayy fluffier than I was intending. Yikes. Holy shit. I'm not, like, a hundred percent happy about the last half or so of this, but I'll come back and fix it if it really bothers me that much.

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you feel like you shouldn’t really be surprised that your death brought about the solution to a lot of problems.

You and Roxy are no longer actively in danger of being killed by the Condesce, for one. Sure, she’s dead, but you aren’t positive _when_ she died, and you are strongly of the opinion that it’s better to be safe than sorry. You get to live with Jake. You’ve finally figured out how to go from your Houston or Roxy’s New York to Jake’s island. 

You’re only one person now.

It’s strange, and hard to get used to. There are nightmares, sometimes, because dying violently as many times as you have can apparently cause a guy some problems. But Jake is there. _Jake_ is _there,_ and it continually amazes you just how much he’s done without even really realizing it. 

You two haven’t magically solved all of your relationship problems, of course, but he is gung-fucking-ho about making this shit work. You don’t know if he’s just the absurd optimist to the pessimism you like to pretend is realism, or if it’s some Hope bullshit -- you make a mental note to stop referring to it as bullshit, since it’s why you’re here today -- but whatever it is, it’s actually… going pretty well.

You’re learning how to actually, like, talk about shit. He tells you when he needs space and you’re open with your emotions, or at least that’s how you’re trying to make it play out. It isn’t going perfectly, but as Roxy once put it, “neither one of you is quite as emotionally constipated as you used to be, which is a step fowrard (*forward).”

You’re also slowly learning how to fucking chill for a while. You pretty much never used to truly relax between being awake on Derse and in Houston, and once the Game started you were always focused on that, trying to work out the details of how in the hell you four were going to win this thing. That’s probably the hardest thing to get used to, you think. Not having to plan everything out and not having dire consequences for even the most insignificant of errors, which, okay, maybe that second one is an exaggeration, but that was how you acted and how you thought, and not for no reason. There were some critical moments in the Game that would have fucked all of you and the universe over for good if something had gone differently.

It’s different now, though. For a while, you tried to fill the time, and for a little while there were ways to keep yourself completely busy, but when a month after you got to Jake’s island you’d tried to literally build two robots and a program at the same time, you accepted that living the way you had before the Game was not going to work.

You have, like, actual spontaneous fun now. You can occupy yourself while Jake’s away or needs space or whatever without accidentally working for three consecutive days with no sleep, most of the time.

And you have Jake.

He’s just absolutely the most fucking ridiculous person you know, and you don’t think you could ever make it work with anyone else.

You love him.

In ten years or so, when you’re both as functional as you’re ever going to be and most of your other friends are either married or never going to be, you’ll quietly make it official. Roxy will manage Jake’s bachelor party and Jane yours, which means Jake will have the time of his life trying and failing to gun her down at paintball (and you’ll never really know if she’ll hire a stripper or not -- either option will seem equally plausible) while Jane will give you a shoulder massage and help you not _completely_ flip your shit. You’ll still flip your shit, but she’ll help you un-flip it a little.

A year or two after that, when you’re in the process of adopting your first daughter, Jake will try his damndest to get you to let him name her Mystique, Mystie or Misty for short, which you’ll veto. (He will successfully convince you when you get your second child two years later, though, which you won’t really _regret_ per se, but you’ll definitely think about it and sigh a lot and maybe chuckle fondly.) (He’ll never convince you of Neytiri, though.) You’ll go with Nessa, eventually, and when you first get to hold her you’ll be completely frozen, fighting off a panic attack (because until that day it’ll never seem real that you’ll be a _father,_ you’ll have an _actual kid_ to take care of and, like, _parent_ ) and just staring in awe because _holy shit that’s your baby girl THIS ONE’S YOURS._

You’ll both swear around them entirely too much, so they'll grow up with some of the worst potty mouths ever. Fortunately, you’ll be raising them on a jungle island, so you won’t need to worry about getting notes from their teachers or anything.

Mystie will come out as nonbinary when xe’s twelve and go by Tique instead. You’ll accept it as normal the instant xe tells you and you’ll mentally beat yourself up every time you mess up hir name or pronouns (which will happen like three times ever) and though Jake will stumble around it a bit, he’ll shower hir with love and you and xe will both know that when he messes up it’s only out of habit and that he really means it when he apologizes.

When Nessa and Tique both move away (because cool as you’ll be, nobody wants to spend their life on an island with just their fathers), you and Jake will look at each other and realize that in ten years, your kids will look older than you do. You’ll make the executive decision that getting high as balls will be a great idea, and you’ll live in a funk for a few months, but Jake will drag you out of it like he always will.

You’ll just… live. You’ll find ways to fill some of the time, and sometimes you’ll just laze around.

You’ll be fine.


End file.
